Ryo Marufuji
Whenever faced with a problem, Ryo is always calm and collected, never reacting out of surprise or fear. He's known for being a very a highly respected young duelist with a deep respect for his opponents and his own cards. He feels that the connection between a duelist and his opponent, as well as the duelist himself and his own deck, makes a victory more meaningful. A duel with him is only reserved for the elite and not the weak, therefore, Ryo will only duel someone whom he feels is a worthy enough opponent to him. Despite his reserved personality, he does care deeply for his younger brother Sho and watches over him despite his brother's self-confidence in himself that he would never be as good enough duelist as him. He surprisingly does have friends even though he's quite a popular student, but does not fraternize like most. He's acquainted with Asuka Tenjoin and her brother Fubuki Tenjoin whom he used to attend dueling prep school with in America. He's also incredibly intelligent, making high marks in all of his classes, earning him a high GPA to where he was able to do dual enrollment at Todai University. Because Ryo has such a reserved personality, many can confuse this for him being a snob, believing that he is too good to hang around anyone. He takes great pride in the game of duel monsters and believed his brother to not be ready to use such powerful cards like 'Power Bond', which was the reason behind Sho's self-confidence in his dueling abilities. Though mostly an observer, while doing so, he seeks out worthy opponents to duel to be able to test his own skills against them. In short, he believes that weaker duelists are not worth his time as the duel would not only end quickly but it would've also been a waste of his time. Secretly, Ryo suffers from a heart condition that causes him great pain whenever he over exerts himself in a duel as he has been known to clutch his chest tightly and therefore hides this fact from his younger brother to keep him from worrying about him. He originally had a dream to be a Pro Duelist but because of his heart condition, he no longer cannot. Appearance Ryo is 6'0 with short neck-length dark turquoise blue hair that is section into three layers and faded dark turquoise blue eyes that are positioned directly beneath his bangs of the layer closest to his face. His skin complexion is very much pale, just like his brother's and the corners of his face and chin are pointed whereas his eyes are much more slanted. He is normally seen wearing a boys uniform that consists of a black and gray jacket with black pants, white socks and brown suede shoes. When he attended dueling prep school in America he wore a uniform that had a more pronounced collar, tighter-bound sleeves, and pointed rims coming out of the lower back with blue pants and black suede shoes. He can be seen wearing casual clothes but it is very rare as he wears quite expensive dress suits that he feels suit his tastes in clothing more. He owns a Kaiba Corp duel disk that he wears on his left wrist whenever he duels. When he graduated from the American dueling prep school, he kept the uniform and the buttons became star-shaped. History Ryoichi Marufuji, Ryo for short, is the older brother of Sho Marufuji. Ryo himself is quite famous for his intelligence and exceptional dueling skills and because he was so skilled at dueling, he'd studied abroad in America for three years along with Asuka Tenjoin's older brother Fubuki Tenjoin at a dueling preparatory school, both of them given scholarships from Tsukuba Academy to attend the school not only because of their dueling skills but also because of their grades as well. In short. Ryo represented Tsukuba for as long as he attended the duel prep school. During his time attending it, a tournament was organized where the winner would be permitted to duel him once they made it to the final round as his dueling skills were superior to a lot of the students that attended the school that he was allowed to be the final challenge. He witnessed Fubuki’s defeat in his duel with David, making David come to the conclusion that if his friend was weak, then he wasn’t as strong as his reputation implies. Fubuki defended Ryo, telling him not to insult his best friend. Ryo is greatly impressed by how skilled the first year students were and the eventual winner of the tournament was a first year student named Hiroki Ugaki and it'd been announced that he would face Ryo but in the end the boy lost to Ryo and he retained the title as the number one duelist in the school. Ryo returned to Tsukuba after his three years of attending the school along with Fubuki and two American students, David Rabb and Reggie McKenzie. He returned to Tsukuba as a junior where he completed his final two years there while also doing dual enrollment at Todai University. Many have compared him and his younger brother Sho to one another and determined that Sho was always the weakest out of the two of them while Ryo is stronger. He'd witnessed a duel between his brother and his friend Judai Yuki and came to the conclusion that what everyone had said was the farthest thing from the truth. His brother had done a lot of growing up while he'd been away, as he applied everything that he'd taught his brother about dueling and used it proficiently. Zane plays the game using a Cyber Dragon deck while Sho uses a Roid deck. Though his brother dreams of becoming a great duelist like Ryo, he could see as well as believe that someday he will, especially with the confidence he'd gained playing the game. He stills consider him to be too kind of a duelist but now, he respects his brother's style of playing. Ryo is able to attract the attention of many girls (not intentionally) while his brother on the other hand, is unable to. He does not worry about such things like relationships and it comes across as surprising that he does have friends, being acquainted with Fubuki and his younger sister Asuka. He prefers that others to not get too close to him, considering that he keeps his apparent heart condition a secret and the only one who knows of it is Fubuki and Asuka. He'd only recently developed this condition where it was later diagnosed by a doctor at Jurojin Hospital named Hanatoshi Sugai that discovered that Ryo had Type 2 diabetes, causing him to have to be in insulin for the rest of his life. It us unknown what caused him to obtain this serious illness but it is something that he has to life with. His condition causes him to have occasional chest pains, especially if he overexerts himself and as such, becoming a pro duelist is no longer a possibility for him. He still duels but it isn't as often and he only looks to duel opponents who are worthy of going up against him. So now, instead of trying to become a pro duelist, Ryo's focusing his time on his studies, taking classes at Todai in the medical profession, deciding to become a doctor. He's become the apprentice of Dr. Hanatoshi Sugai who is a family doctor of the Sohma Family. At first, they were weary of another outsider working alongside Hanatoshi because of their family secret. But because he was the one that'd diagnosed him, Ryo wanted to know more about his illness as well as be able to help others. It wasn't a dream that he had but it was the only thing he felt that he could do with his life now that he could no longer be a professional duelist without causing too much stress to his body, no matter how much he tries to change his lifestyle to stay healthy. Hanatoshi had an assistant that worked under him but he did not see anything wrong with having an apprentice and Ryo appeared to be sincere in his words so he gave him a chance. Ryo had no idea what he was getting into while working alongside the man. Reading medical books among other books as well as watching Hanatoshi work at the hospital but at the main house of the Sohmas. Things were going fine until one day, a member of the Sohmas, Zakura Sohma had come running to Hanatoshi's office to see him but ended up bumping into Ryo and automatically, she'd disappeared, the only thing left behind were her clothes and a small little bunny rabbit. You can imagine that he was not only confused at what'd just happened but also wondered, where the girl had gone that'd came into the office. Turns out, that Zakura was in fact the rabbit, having transformed into the furry little animal when she'd mistakenly ran into Ryo. Hanatoshi had stumbled upon the scene and Zakura had immediately begun apologizing for being so careless. Though confused, Ryo wasn't as completely freaked out about it. In fact, he'd kept calm during the entire incident but Hanatoshi felt that he had no choice but to erase the boy's memories of what he'd seen. He'd asked his mentor what was going on and why did this girl suddenly go from human and changed into a rabbit and he became poking her in the forehead while he'd asked at. He told him that it wouldn't make much of a difference explaining it to him because he wouldn't remember any of it afterward. Ryo was content with the idea of having his memories erased, but he was not one for telling the secrets of others but if whatever the secret of the Sohma family was, he had no intentions of telling anyone. As some things are better off being a secret for some people fear what they do not understand but if it was okay, he would like to remain Hanatoshi's apprentice because there was no one else he'd rather learn to be a better doctor under, than him. Zakura found Ryo to be nice and pleaded with Hanatoshi to not tell the head of the family, Amane Sohma. He said he had no choice but to do so. Amane allowed for Ryo to keep his memories, so long as he kept his word that he would not tell anyone of their family's secret. No one could possibly understand what they have to go through in dealing with the curse that is placed upon their family. Hanatoshi told Ryo of Amane's decision and Zakura was happy that his memories didn't have to be erased. Ryo was neutral of the idea overall but still accepted what was decided but if he was going to keep his memories, Zakura felt that she should be the one to tell him about her family. They're the family that's cursed with transforming into animals of the Chinese Zodiac when hugged by the opposite sex, which is why she turned into a rabbit when she ran into Ryo. Such things like this should not exist and could be considered supernatural in a sense but it is not as if the cursed members possess any powers, they just transform into animals and that's it. Ryo found it odd but again, was not freaked out about it and considering that there are strange things that went on at his former school on a regular, finding out something like this did not come off as a surprise to him. But he kindly thanked Zakura for telling him about her family and swore that he would not tell anyone. So, with that being said, Ryo still works as Hanatoshi's apprentice, well only assistant now since the female assistant had left due to reasons that shall not be mentioned. But more importantly, Ryo is keeping up with his studies at both Todai while using any free time he has to go to the Sohma main house to study medicine under his mentor. Plot Coming Soon! Relationships Sho Marufuji Ryo's Deck List Cyber Dragon Deck Trivia *While Ryo still views his brother too kind of a person to be a duelist, he doesn't brush him off entirely like his anime counterpart does. In actuality, his reasons behind avoiding his brother is to keep him from worrying about his own well-being and why he is unable to become a professional duelist. *He is still attending school in order to obtain his degree and license to practice in the field of medicine since he is unable to duel without his illness causing him extreme pain in his chest from overexerting himself. Also See *Yu-Gi-Oh! Gx *Sho Marufuji *Fubuki Tenjoin *Asuka Tenjoin